From Doubt to Faith 

Rg/. F. Touf^nebize, S. J . 







Class „ 

Book Si 

Copyright^ 



COFHUGHT DEPOSIT; 



From Doubt to Faith 



BY 



REV. F. TOURNEBIZE, S. J, 



Adapted from the French 



BY 



REV. J. M. LELEIL 






•♦ * * 



* 
- ■ - 



i * st. loxj:^; too. fm.* ,;•*,'; 

Published by B. HERDER, 

17 South Broadway. 



I LIBRARY --' CONG J* ESS 

TWO Csjpibi RaC«|vnO 

APR 1 1904 

Copyright £«try 
CLASS ^ XXc= Nov 






COPY 



NIHIL OBSTAT 
St. Louis, February 2, 1904. 

F. G. Homveck, 

Censor theologicus. 

IMPRIMATUR. 
St. Louis, February 2, 1904. 

►J* John J. Gi^knnon, 

Archbishop St. Louis. 



— BECKTOLD— 

PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 

ST. LOUIS, MO. 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Introduction 1 

Chapter I. 
Our need of faith. 

1. All our faculties demand faith . . 3 

2. Without faith there is no virtue . . 6 

3. No happiness 14 

Chapter II. 
The reasons why we believe. 

1. Faith is a conviction : its proofs . . 26 

2. Whoever does not deny God must submit 

to Catholicism 36 

3. The obligation of believing . . .39 

Chapter III. 
The dispositions to believe. 

1. The pride of a too exacting reason is a 

great hindrance 42 

2. Necessity of adaptation : humility, prayer 51 

3. Third obstacle : the senses and heart . 57 

4. These obstacles removed by docility, the 

spirit of sacrifice, fidelity to good works 60 

Chapter IV. 
The duty and the manner of believing. 

1. Besetting doubts : their causes. . . 66 

2. The remedy for doubt : appeals to reason 
and will 69 

3. The appeals to reason are legitimate : 

faith is a virtuous and free act, no less 
than a conviction 71 

Chapter V. 
Faith is a grace within the reach of every one. 

1. The promise of Christ is universal . 75 

2. Indispensable truths 78 

3. These truths are accessable even to the 

most abandoned ..... 80 
Conclusion . . , . . .86 



INTRODUCTION. 

This booklet is addressed to disturbed 
and tempted souls ; to minds afflicted with 
the torments of doubt ; to all those, in fine, 
who coming in contact with Catholic teach- 
ing, complain that they have never re- 
ceived the gift of faith, or seem to regret 
having lost it. 

Whilst we deeply sympathize with these 
latter, we cannot, however, regard them 
all as indiscriminately blameless. Several 
of them, at one period of their lives, im- 
prudently welcomed doubt and took com- 
placency in it: afterward, on discovering 
that the structure of their faith had com- 
menced to totter, instead of seeking the 
means to repair its breaches, and by God's 
help, to strengthen it, they lent their help 
as accomplices, more or less responsible, 
in sapping its foundations and overthrow- 
ing it. But all those who set down their 
unbelief as the natural result of thought, 
of temperament, of character, and particu- 
larly of training, are not all culpable to 
the same extent. 

(i) 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

If some love to pose as victims of a 
struggle between heart and mind — a 
struggle, by the way, in which, as was to 
be expected, mind is victorious, other un- 
believers give proof of sincerity and seem 
to thirst after religious truth; these, 
surely, deserve our interest, — that we 
labor to enlighten them, that we stretch a 
hand to help them to escape that condition 
of soul in which they do not find peace. 

And so he would not be an apostle 
worthy of the name who should not en- 
deavor to smooth the road to faith ; so sad 
it is to witness their lives without a super- 
natural aim and themselves leave the world 
estranged from God and without consola- 
tion. 



Chapter I. 

Our Need of Faith. 

I. All our faculties demand faith. — II. Without 
faith there is no virtue. — III. No happiness. 

I. Ail our faculties demand faith. 

To believe is indeed a need of the soul, 
a need the more imperative, because the 
soul is the noblest part of our being. Ac- 
cording to the expressive statement of 
Seneca man is not on this earth merely "to 
filter beverages and to cock foodstuffs.' 7 
His mind, too great to be absorbed by the 
instincts of the body, has higher aspira- 
tions and the transitory cannot satisfy it. 
In all his faculties, provided they keep 
their direction from the starting point and 
are not perverted or deadened by vices 
man overleaps time and space and yearns 
for the infinite. The most wonderful dis- 
coveries of science may, for a time, inter- 
est the human mind, but they do not satisfy 

(3) 



4 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

it. They do not speak to it of its origin, 
its nature or its purpose. But these ques- 
tions are of the utmost importance to him, 
as his happiness depends on them. Left 
to its own resources, the human intellect 
catches a glimpse of the great truths which 
are the substantial food of the soul; but 
still, what study, what effort, what pen- 
etration are necessary in finding out the 
way traced by religion ! The multitude is 
incapable of such an effort. Even for 
learned men, when they are not handi- 
capped by illness or the daily struggle for 
life, how many gaps, how many uncertain- 
ties. 

They feel they must honor God, but 
how? The nature of the worship to be 
given, the duties to which they are bound, 
who shall explain to them ? Philosophers ? 
But when interrogated on these questions, 
philosophers who live outside of Eevela- 
tion stammer, hesitate and give contradic- 
tory answers. "It is difficult'' says Plato 
"to find the Creator and Father of the 
Universe ; but, to explain Him philosoph- 
ically to man is absolutely impossible." 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 5 

The sublime thinker could only see in the 
truths discovered by human wisdom mis- 
erable rafts on which we might provision- 
ally embark ; only a revelation made from 
heaven seemed to him a ship stout enough 
for the voyage of life. 

Without revelation as a guide, human 
reason distracted and weighed down by 
temporal cares, would have a feeble knowl- 
edge of its essential obligations especially 
towards God. Do we not see prominent 
men whom "Christianity does not satisfy 77 
oscillate restlessly between a complete in- 
credulity and childish superstitions ? Not 
being able to honor God, as He deserves 
to be honored, how could we appease Him 
after having offended Him ? This disturb- 
ing thought would ever recur : l 'Is my sin 
forgiven !" Crushed by this feeling of the 
infinite majesty, the impenetrable mystery 
of which would but add to our terror, we 
should not hear in the depths of our con- 
science the consoling answer: "Go in 
peace, thy sins are forgiven." 

Not less obscure for us would be the 
problem of our destiny, and those large 



6 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

souls for whom this world is not enough 
and who sigh for a hereafter should be 
filled with anxiety. How many men 
goaded by this uneasiness have come to 
the feet of Christ! They have said: un- 
doubtedly reason tells us that after dis- 
order there shall be order, that sorrows 
long and patiently endured, that self- 
sacrifice and a constant fidelity to the 
dictates of conscience deserve more than 
the mere satisfaction of duty performed. 
But when and how shall virtue be rewarded 
and injustice punished*! To give this 
question a clear and intelligible answer; 
to shed a deep peace on the soul, which 
even amidst the pleasures and sorrows of 
life, never wholly loses its craving for the 
infinite it was necessary that its Divine 
Author should speak to it, come nearer to 
it to catch its love to lift it up to Himself 
and to promise to fill the immensity of its 
desires by giving Himself to it. 

II. Without faith no complete virtue. 

Since one of the conditions preparatory 
to faith is to feel that we need and desire 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 7 

it, we must establish its sovereign impor- 
tance by pointing out that without faith 
constant virtue and real happiness are im- 
possible. 

Without religion it is very difficult to be 
virtuous. Of course the native dignity of 
the soul, the excellence of its education, 
its character and temperament, the ab- 
sence of leisure, the withdrawal of occa- 
sions may permit the man without faith to 
escape certain temptations and prevent 
him from sinking under them; but how- 
ever privileged he may be, other tempta- 
tions less gross will reach him. Where 
will he find the means of resistance ? In 
himself f That would be strange, indeed. 
There are instances — and there are not a 
few — where the man of faith, anxious lest 
he fall, is obliged to use against the 
tempter all the weai3ons furnished him by 
nature and faith based upon the grace of 
God; he sees himself forced to pray, to 
beg the help of God, to think of the divine 
judge and legislator who sees him, warns 
him of His absolute laws and points out 
to him as the issue of the struggle either 



8 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

sublime rewards or dreadful chastisements. 
How, without these motives of such telling 
influence, can the man who does not believe 
expect to be victorious ? 

The sentiment of honor, perhaps, will 
take the place of God's grace or super- 
natural help. We should be very sorry 
to belittle the sense of honor when honor 
is genuine; but still we must admit that 
the honor which governs those who pay no 
attention to supernatural motives does not 
usually reach the thoughts, desires or 
secret deeds. 

A feeble judge, the opinion of the world, 
decides in those questions of honor; it 
tolerates and often condones many overt 
acts blameworthy in the eyes of conscience. 
It does not always brand as a crime those 
irregular matrimonial ventures, which not 
only lack the recognition of the state, but 
— and this is still worse — which are 
entered into without the sanction of reli- 
gion. Conjugal infidelity itself frequently 
incurs no censure. There are so many 
easy ways to steal or otherwise to go 
wrong, toward which the capricious jury of 



OUE NEED OF FAITH. 9 

public opinion is very lenient. Before 
that tribunal only those are disgraced who 
are so clumsy as to be caught redhanded 
and sentenced in a court of justice. Again, 
a duel is usually considered quite sufficient 
to rehabilitate a compromised honor. 

As to the higher and more chivalrous 
notions of honor, which like an upright 
judge keep close scrutiny on the whole life, 
there are very few who retain them in their 
first delicacy. When once the religious 
sense is gone, the sense of honor, pale and 
feeble shadow of conscience, becomes im- 
pared and after a time atrophied. Then 
what burning passions come and win over 
the heart! How easily ambition, pride, 
hatred, avarice, illicit loves urge their 
wicked suggestions ! If a man exposed to 
their dreadful solicitations can say to him- 
self : here are money, dignities, pleasures, 
and I can take them and enjoy them and 
nobody will see me, who will dare assert 
that a will ever assailed thus will very 
long resist? Indeed many irreligious men, 
inconsistent with their opinions do not 
place very great trust in virtue which has 
not religion for a basis. 



10 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

Spread broadcast in society, this idea 
that earthly happiness is the only one ob- 
tainable and that religion is an empty ex- 
pression, seems to me to be the most dread- 
ful absurdity that can well be imagined. 
Even so the pursuit of pleasures of the 
most vulgar sort is so intense that men 
will, to their own detriment, devote all 
their energies to secure them wherever 
they hope to find them. If anarchists and 
socialists are so terrible, it is because their 
leaders have perverted and incensed them 
against established order, that tremendous 
instinct, by persuading them that there is 
no happiness hereafter. 

And truly, if there be no sovereign legis- 
lator, who commands, rewards and pun- 
ishes, the principles on which our civiliza- 
tion is based are robbed of their sacred 
foundation. The correlative notions of 
right and wrong no longer retain anything 
of the absolute and obligatory; they be- 
come as worthless as a broken bow. Why 
should I be obliged to respect your honor, 
your riches or your life ? Why should I 
be bound to respect my own life I When 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 11 

you abolish God, I merely see in what you 
call duty or virtue, a matter of conveni- 
ence, of prudence, of good form, nothing 
more. In the strict sense of the word there 
is no such thing as duty. There are of 
course unbecoming deeds, indecent and 
coarse people, ; but there are no longer 
criminals. Sin has disappeared, for sin 
presupposes the violation of a fixed law, 
sanctioned by a supreme legislator. More- 
over we shall see that to reject Christ and 
His Church is by a fatal consequence to 
reject at the same time Divine Providence. 
No matter what may be said, the moral 
consequences that follow from principles 
which antagonize faith and the super- 
natural clearly prove their own falsity. 
You strive in vain to escape this crushing 
objection and to reconstruct a morality on 
new foundations. With Immanuel Kant 
you eliminate the intervention of God as a 
principle of moral obligation and make it 
dependent on human reason, which is to 
become in this way independent and self- 
governed : but how can a law, of which I 
am the author, impose obligations on me ? 
Can I not loose the bond that I have tied ! 



12 ' FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

Perhaps you will suggest the interven- 
tion of the State*? Yes, but most of my 
duties are anterior to the formation of the 
state and must survive its destruction. 
Besides, those who appeal to the state as a 
principle of moral obligation, see in the 
authority of the state only the resultant of 
individual wills, and consequently move in 
a vicious circle, whence they can escape 
only by holding on to supernatural prin- 
ciples. 

The list of the substitutes invented to 
take their places would be a very lengthy 
one. Self-interest, in its various forms, 
has been adopted by utilitarians as the 
only system of morals. In spite of their 
efforts, honest consciences will never con- 
found the useful, the advantageous with 
the honest, egotism with virtue, the spirit 
of self-sacrifice with a mistake in reckon- 
ing. Buckner says that the principle of 
morality consists in subordinating an in- 
clination towards a certain present, though 
inferior good, to another which is future 
but superior. Zeigler imagines that he 
can lead us in the severe paths of virtue 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 13 

by showing us how our good deeds con- 
tribute to the 'progress of mankind. He 
hopes to enthuse us with the idea, by 
spreading before our imaginations the ad- 
vance sheets of the book of the future cen- 
tury which will record the progress made 
by our generation. Still another, the last 
but not the least, counsels us to live in 
keeping with the prevailing customs of our 
time. He fails, however, to tell us whether 
he approves of the Mussulman or the Mor- 
mon marrying an indefinite number of 
wives, or of the Chinaman casting away his 
newly born babe, or of the savage Indian 
who faithful to tribal custom kills his 
parents when they become old and infirm. 
Such jests may amuse sceptics dreaming 
leisurely of a winter's evening by a cheer- 
ful fire in a well-appointed room. But 
deep down in their hearts they know well, 
that a man fighting for the necessaries of 
life will pay very little attention to a 
morality which has no higher authority 
and which is not ratified by a penal clause. 
They know that we do not undertake to 
hedge a fallow deer with spider's webs, 
nor appease our hunger with air bubbles. 



14 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

In short, these are the best samples of 
the means, which the so-called wise ones 
— the enemies of Bevelation — have dis- 
covered to take the place of the principles 
of religious morals. Their systems owing 
to their ingenious construction at first 
sight present the appearance of an impos- 
ing edifice, but when examined more 
closely are found to be a house of cards : 
the slightest breath will topple them. 

III. Without Faith no Happiness, 

Faith alone can give to the decrees of 
conscience the force and authority to make 
them effective. Then again, in time of 
sorrow, faith is the only solace and protec- 
tion. A man in his hours of darkness, 
suffering and anguish appealing to an 
agnostic philosophy for encouragement and 
help, finds therein a blind and deaf friend, 
an icy heart for his pains. 

When we pierce the veil with which 
their pride is covered, the arrogant tran- 
quillity and stoicism which they wear is 
nothing more than a gloomy resignation. 
On the 24th of March, 1898, Gabriel 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 15 

Hanotaux, delivering in the French Aca- 
demy the eulogy on his predecessor Challe- 
mel Lacour, pictured, in the following 
words, the attitude of that unbelieving 
philosopher, before his death: "Graceful 
and discreet to the end, he became sad at 
first, then silent, as if he was close to the 
grave. His soul rebelled, for he was 
awaiting in sullen silence, the unspeakable 
morrow of life. It was in keeping with his 
career; it was the end of the wolf as 
described by the poet of the fates." To 
await with the fierce resignation of the 
brute, the fatal shock which hurls us from 
time into eternity, is, according to this ad- 
mirer, the ideal conduct for an unbeliever. 
Gloomy is his death : not less gloomy his 
life. The philosophy, which at that 
supreme moment has nothing better to 
suggest than the example of the wolf, 
affords no true comfort in the trials of 
life. 

Please tell me what doctrine underlies 
this "active and vigorous stoicism,'' with 
which the French Academician compli- 
ments his hero? What means this "secret 



16 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

and reserved religion," this "ambrosia 
which is not for gross mortals"? To these 
philosophic notions, you may apply the 
names, pessimism, positivism, materialism, 
scepticism, transcedental egotism or nihil- 
ism, they are empty and disappointing all 
the same. In all of them duty is made out 
to be the product of the individual will. 
Human life is presented, irrespective of 
the future, as "an unceasing chase" in an 
arena enclosed by stone barriers where 
now the pursuers and now the pursued 
struggle for the bleeding morsels of their 
less fortunate victim : everywhere struggle, 
everywhere suffering, and then death with- 
out waking "down through the centuries 
until our planet breaks up into star- dust." 
Since the unbeliever expects nothing 
after this life, we can truly say that he has 
no happiness. We meet people, it is true, 
who style themselves unbelievers, and who 
to all outward appearance, seem happy; 
but we also see criminals ascend the scaf- 
fold apparently in a joyous mood, whilst 
their souls are given up to stupor and 
despair. We must not confound true and 



OUK NEED OF FAITH. 17 

heartfelt happiness with outward appear- 
ance. This latter is usually only a mask, 
frequently a lying caricature. Besides, let 
us not forget that the majority of unbeliev- 
ers are very shallow : they are trying to 
pass their lives in a perpetual round of 
projects and sensations. As to the logical 
consequences of their doctrines, they never 
think : like the Epicurean poet they refrain 
from thinking, what the future may bring 
them. 

However, even to the busiest lives, to 
the most superficial minds, there comes a 
time, when these fictitious joys dwindle 
and disappear, when the mind and heart 
feel too circumscribed by the limit of this 
present life. Then, reflections, hitherto 
suppressed, surge up with irresistible force. 
In the presence of an unlooked-for afflic- 
tion, a sudden break-up, an ailment with- 
out remedy, those persons sadly compare 
their ardent desire of knowing and of 
loving with the paltry and transitory things 
of this world, beyond which they see 
nothing. Between that legitimate need — 
the insatiable desire of the infinite — which 



18 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

he has, and the narrow, vulgar sphere 
within which he confines himself there is a 
contrast, violent enough to crush his soul 
completely. 

He aspires to see the truth in the focus 
where all its rays converge, and he finds 
himself enveloped in darkness. He desires 
an intimate union, by contemplation and 
love, with a Being eternally the same, 
always living, who in turn would by His 
looks, His breathing, His whole influence 
and being, shed on him the pure treasures 
of an inexhaustible goodness and tender- 
ness ; and to his great surprise instead of 
that shoreless ocean of pure love, where he 
tries to satiate himself, his lips find only a 
few drops which only intensify his thirst. 
Instead of the perfect and permanent hap- 
piness which his nature demands, he finds 
only a dreary void — the end of all earthly 
satisfaction. And just in the same measure 
as he sees his pleasures diminish, the dis- 
proportion between his joys and his desires 
increases and his faith discloses itself the 
more dreadfully. 

He thinks he has been thrown on the 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 19 

earth like a wave rolled in at random by 
the ocean and that he like the wave will 
disappear in a moment, confounded with 
the dust or scattered to the winds of 
heaven. He sees himself separated from 
his family, from his friends and from 
everything he loves. The more he loves 
and is loved, the sadder and more violent 
is the separation. It is the torment of a 
man who bidding adieu to his loved ones 
is looking the while at the grave in which 
he is to be buried alive. Except he stifle 
all thought and anticipation, his most 
delicious pleasures, knowing them to be 
transitory, must arouse in him at the 
moment of tasting, more violent despairs, 
more bitter thoughts ef regret. 

We are not here in presence of fancy's 
pictures, before spectres conjured up by 
the overheated imagination of a believer. 
It is the stern reality, which confronts the 
man who has no religious belief, when once 
the tumult of his impressions and the 
deafening noise of the world have ceased to 
affect him. 

In this regard , we have an avowal by 



20 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH 

the German, David Frederick Strauss, the 
father of modern infidelity, a man whose 
heart was as cold as his style, a man not 
usually classed among sentimentalists : 
"We feel ourselves," he says, "caught in 
the notched wheel of that monstrous 
machine of the world. You hear it 
whizzing, striking, crushing: not one 
moment of security: with an inexorable 
movement the wheels catch you, the ham- 
mers smash you; and the feeling of ab- 
solute abandonment is something unspeak- 
ably dreadful. " It is as if a convict, who 
tolling his own death-knell imparts to it a 
more heart-rending clang. And in this 
sorry plight, the only solace at hand is the 
empty thought of the universal evolution, 
to keep on enjoying the memory of friend- 
ships broken by death, to enjoy the beau- 
ties of nature and art, to sympathize with 
others, to fulfil his appointed task and "at 
last to surrender to necessity and be glad 
to die." 

And so to all human sorrows, the atheist 
presents only the impassiveness of death : 
if life be unbearable, at least that burden 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 21 

ceases when he dies. Believe nie, of the 
many incentives to suicide, the most fruit- 
ful is not suffering or misery, as much as 
the absence of faith. 

Statistics tell us that of the 120 or 140 
deaths recorded, on an average, every day 
in Paris, 2 or 3 are suicides. During this 
past week out of 884 deaths there were 
27 suicides and 17 other violent deaths. 
Among those that die by their own hand, 
there are very few that believe in God, 
and particularly in Christ. Some received 
no Christian education: others corrupted 
by bad example, by bad reading, swayed 
by their passions have smothered the faith 
which was their last restraint and their 
last protection. It is not of unfrequent 
occurrence, for a priest in listening to the 
confidences of some afflicted souls, to re- 
ceive such avowals as this: "Father, if I 
had not been checked and sustained by my 
faith, I could never have borne so many 
trials. ?? 

This is the reason, why, if it be laudable, 
to relieve the miseries of the body, to open 
hospitals to the poor, it is still more so to 



22 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

attend to the troubles of the soul : to im- 
part to the despairing the courage to live, 
by helping them to know, love and fear 
God, by pointing out to them the road to 
hope and faith. 

Ah ! how different consolation from the 
model of the wolf, as proposed by Gabriel 
Hanotaux, is the example of the God-man 
enduring death to relieve me of its bitter- 
ness and to open to me the way to a glori- 
ous and immortal life. When Malesherbes 
came to announce to Louis XVI. that he 
was sentenced to death by the Eevolution- 
ists, he could not refrain from tears ; but 
what was his admiration when he saw the 
king as calm as if preparing for a short 
trip. "Do not shed tears, 77 said the king 
to his former statesman, "we shall see each 
other again in a better world. 77 The fol- 
lowing day, the 21st January 1793, on 
learning of the heroic end of his king, 
Malesherbes could not help crying out: "It 
is indeed true, that religion, alone, can im- 
part such perfect serenity in such a 
moment. 77 

As for himself, the former patron of 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 23 

philosophers, who had shared their free 
thought, recovered in his misfortunes the 
convictions of his youth. A year later, 
when he, in his turn, was condemned to 
the scaffold, he addressed his grandson, de 
Tocqueville, who came to embrace him: 
• k My friend, if you have children, educate 
them in Christian principles : they are the 
only sound ones. 77 This was the tardy 
recognition that faith is the indispensable 
viaticum, the only basis of reliable virtue 
and real happiness. 

The health of the moral life accordingly 
demands a superior atmosphere, where it 
is regularly refreshed, fed, purified and 
strengthened. As flowers shut out from 
the light, the virtues of the unbeliever, no 
matter how highly gifted, languish and 
never attain their perfect growth. 

On the other hand enlightened and 
sustained by his divine guide the man of 
faith feels himself borne higher and higher 
on the road to perfection. He treads joy- 
fully the coarse pathways of life and tra- 
verses hopefully the dark passage of death, 
and everything he loves, at least every- 



24 /FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

thing worth loving, he leaves for a time ; 
but he will find them again. 

There is an unseen native land, an im- 
perishable shelter, where all Christian souls 
shall meet forever. Unbelievers forget 
very soon. In truth, for them, when the 
flower is withered, nothing remains of the 
perfume which formerly charmed. How 
could they be interested in nothingness ? 
On the other hand, in the heart of the 
believer, and still more so on the Altar of 
Christ, the worship of remembrance is per- 
petuated: not a vulgar and useless one, 
either; but gratifying to those who sur- 
vive, and beneficial to the departed. "What 
I ask of you," said St. Monica to her son, 
at her death, "is that you remember me at 
the altar of God, wherever you are.' 7 

The light and peace, vouchsafed here 
by revelation, are only the twilight, the 
dawn, the foretaste of the vision and the 
happiness rewarded hereafter, for the vir- 
tuous. Still, these glimpses and fore- 
tastes, presented by faith, nourished by 
charity and prolonged by hope, far sur- 
pass, in their serenity, all earthly and 



OUR NEED OF FAITH. 25 

transitory pleasures. What unbeliever, if 
he at all reflects, has not frequently envied 
the lot of him who in his hour of darkness, 
clings to something stable, and who can 
say: "The master whom I adore, invisible 
by nature has become man to redeem me ; 
He is always present, He enlightens, helps, 
comforts, supports me. He communicates 
to me the supernatural life, which springs 
from the foot of the cross, He urges me on 
by His precepts, and allures me to virtue 
by His example. If 1 desire to follow Him, 
He bears me on the wings of His love from 
virtue to virtue, even up to the likeness 
of, and union with God." There is no 
burden which this conviction does not 
lighten, no afflction which it does not 
alleviate. In all trials, the soul of the 
believer seeks and finds in prayer, a safe 
shelter in the bosom of God. There, like 
the bird whose powerful wings have carried 
it above the sphere of storms, the soul 
floats in serenity, undisturbed by the crash 
of the tempests that howl beneath. 



Chapter II. 

The Reasons why we believe. 

I. Faith is a conviction : its proofs. — II. Atheist or 
Catholic. — III. Obligation of believing. 

I, Faith is a conviction : Some proofs of this. 

In all vital questions, religion alone can 
furnish its adherents with light, certitude, 
hope and peace. Divine revelation not 
only satisfies the cravings of the heart, but 
presents all legitimate assurances demanded 
by reason. To examine these proofs with- 
out bias is the first requisite in attaining 
to faith. What prudent man would con- 
sider it unworthy of him, to study a reli- 
gion the greatest minds have always spoken 
of with admiration, and of which its most 
inveterate enemies, such as'Eenan, could 
not help admitting, that it is '-the best 
code of perfect life and of absolute religion, 
a system that satisfies reason and can be 
antagonized only by libertines. ?? 

(26) 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE. 27 

Revelation, it is true, has its obscurities; 
but even in the natural order what science 
is there without its mysteries ? Should a 
man continue to doubt because he does not 
understand, does not see, does not know 
the essence of a thing'? Thank God, on 
all sides of the edifice of Christianity suffi- 
cient light penetrates the obscurity to en- 
able us to see in the suiDerhuman work the 
hand of the divine artificer who created 
and maintains it against the formidable 
attacks of all the passions combined. 

With this light, interspersed with 
shadows, the mind does not become fam- 
iliar all at once. Preparation is necessary; 
and God and man must share in the work. 
It is by a series of truths, one illuminating 
another, that we are brought gently and 
gradually to the heart of revelation. 

Unless we doubt even our own existence, 
we must admit that there is a God absolut- 
ely perfect. Infinitely happy in Himself, 
that Being could remain at a distance from 
us, to whom He was in no way indebted. 
But if by considering the nature of man 
and the nature of God, I am not justified 



28 FKOM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

in asserting with certainty the existence of 
revelation, still the more I meditate on the 
boundless goodness of God, on the vagaries 
of human wisdom and philosophy, on the 
imperative need of certainty, God and our 
destiny, the more it seems, not only pos- 
sible but probable, that He has wished to 
communicate directly with a creature cap- 
able of knowing and loving Him, to speak 
to him otherwise than by the voice of the 
universe, and it may be, to condescend to 
unfold to him the secrets of His intimate 
life. 

The relations of God with man, which 
reason of itself guesses at and which the 
heart sanctions, can be easily established, 
if we put speculation aside and study the 
facts. 

Here we see unfold themselves, an array 
of truths, which illumine by their thousand 
rays the divine aspect of Christ. Since the 
beginning of the world, He fills time and 
space with His name, His history, His in- 
fluence. He is announced and expected as 
a God. Open the Old Testament, and you 
will find described minutely the circum- 



THE REASONS WHY AVE BELIEVE. 29 

stances of His life. His death, His triumph. 
Even among the pagan nations, their ac- 
counts agree with those of the Bible, and 
they point to the Orient where a liberator 
is to be born of a virgin. 

So there is no exaggeration in the words 
of John de Muller to Charles Bonnet: "the 
whole history of the world is clear to me 
since I came to know Christ Jesus. " 

He is not yet born and He already reigns 
in various degrees over the peoples of the 
ancient world, like the sun, to which He is 
compared by the Psalmist, which, even 
before reaching the horizon, lights up the 
mountains and valleys in greater propor- 
tion as it approaches nearer. Have the 
hopes of the universe been disappointed? 
To settle this question let us take up the 
book that supplements the Old Testament, 
perfecting and completing it. An unbroken 
tradition, all the links of which modern 
apologetics have verified, removes the last 
doubt that the Gospels have not been really 
composed by SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John, that is to say, by witnesses 
thoroughly informed on the happenings 



30 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

they relate. Now, these historians, who 
deserve no less credit than a Seneca or a 
Tacitus, their contemporaries, bear witness 
that the old traditions concerning the Mes- 
siah have been realized perfectly in the 
person of Jesus Christ. The prophecies of 
the Old Testament, those of the New, the 
miracles of Christ and His disciples, the 
perfection of His life, of His morals and 
His doctrines, His incomparable power to 
transform individuals and peoples who 
worship Him — these are what reveal the 
heavenly origin of Christianity. All these 
indicate the voice of God, which cannot be 
counterfeited by the creature. 

Now, instead of a long series of miracles, 
if only one, the resurrection of Christ, were 
established, it would be quite sufficient to 
justify our faith. Providential circum- 
stances greatly strengthen that proof. 
Christ has just been crucified and buried. 
Scattered and dismayed, the Apostles seem 
to have utterly forgotten that their Master 
had foretold that He should arise from the 
tomb. A few days elapse, and suddenly 
these same men are transformed: all preach 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE. 31 

fearlessly that Jesus of Nazareth has risen 
from the dead. 

Could they be deceived 1 ? Impossible: 
Christ appeared to them more than ten 
times. He ate with them, had them touch 
His pierced side and ascended to heaven 
before their eyes. Would they want to 
deceive us? But, to what purpose? Is 
man so perverse as to wish to deceive 
wantonly, and without some advantage? 
Now, study the Apostles more closely: 
there is in their words the tone of perfect 
loyalty, they admit their former errors, 
they accuse and abase themselves, they do 
not hide from us the fact that they aband- 
oned Christ on the road to Calvary. Yet, 
now they are firm, inflexible, unanimous 
in preaching Christ truly risen. 

If Jesus has not triumphed over death, 
His disciples are either accomplices in an 
execrable imposture or stricken with folly. 
All their fond hopes rested in Him are 
dashed to the ground ; if they have not lost 
justice and good sense they must acknowl- 
edge their error. In doing so they are 
assured of the favor of the Jews. But, to 



32 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

try to set up for the adoration of the whole 
world a body without life or strength and 
to disgrace it all with a sacrilegious lie, 
what a crime and what insanity! What 
can they hope for ? Here on earth, defeat 
absolutely certain, accompanied or fol- 
lowed by unspeakable tortures ; and here- 
after by the eternal torments that a just 
and jealous God, in whom they believe, 
reserves to impostors conscious of dissem- 
inating an idolatrous worship. 

Still these simple, timid and God-fearing 
men, set out unhesitatingly to the conquest 
of the world, convinced that some day, 
sooner or later, that world will bow down 
before their crucified Master. Injuries, 
contempt, cruelties the most exquisite, 
deaths the most terrible, they brave with a 
calm countenance and a joyous heart. I 
admit there have been fanatics, filled with 
a false idea, which they defended to the 
death. But never, no never, will men 
truly religious be found to sacrifice their 
honor, their lives, their souls which they 
know to be immortal to assert a fact, ob- 
vious and easy of verification and of the 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE. 33 

falsity of which they are thoroughly con- 
scious. 

To explain the origin and the marvellous 
history of Christianity, by illusion or im- 
posture, is to constitute vice and folly the 
groundwork of the most admirable virtues 
or to make the Creator the accomplice in 
an error or a lie. Is it not denying Pro- 
vidence and even the existence of God? 
With these dogmas, in the present order of 
things, is closely linked the divine origin 
of the Catholic Church. 

Christ, undoubtedly, when establishing 
His religion ordained that it be handed 
down, one and unchangeable to the apostles 
and their successors ; that through them it 
be diffused through all ages and peoples, 
become the supreme rule of intellect and 
will, giving the same spiritual birth to all, 
as children of the same mother, uniting 
them in the same faith, proposing to them 
the same ideal of perfection, to be realized 
by participation in the same sacraments. 

To fulfil this design, Christ has accord- 
ingly established a hierarchical society, the 
chiefs of which receive their holy orders, 



34 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

their authority, their symbol of faith and 
their mission from Him and His immediate 
successors, the apostles. If only one link 
of the uninterrupted chain that connects 
them with the primitive Church be broken 
all the links depending on that one are dis- 
connected with the society intended and in- 
stituted by our Lord. 

Therefore the divine Founder has or- 
dained that, in order to maintain harmony 
in faith and discipline between its divers 
members, this society shall always be in 
possession of a chief, a center of authority 
and supreme judge in controversies, the 
vital principle of unity and life, all the 
more necessary ia the Church, as her 
robust branches shoot out into time and 
space. 

"If there were no primacy in the Catho- 
lic Church, " says the protestant, Hugo 
Grotius, "controversies would be endless, 
as they are in protestantism. " The divine 
institution of an infallible judge in ques- 
tions regarding faith is necessary, more- 
over, for the education of mankind. This 
thought, it is well known, deeply im- 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE. 35 

pressed Augustine Thierry in his histor- 
ical studies ; so much so, that it became as 
a flash of light which brought him directly 
to the Catholic Church. 

For this reason, the Church cannot be a 
particular society, confined to a century or 
a nation. She must embrace all nations 
and all times. It is therefore necessary 
that she remain always visible, and to all, 
not only one, Catholic and Apostolic, but, 
holy, as well, in her laws, her dogmas and 
her discipline, the marvellous school of 
sanctity, where, side by side with humble 
piety, the power of miracles never ceases 
to flourish. 

Now, these characteristic marks of the 
true Church instituted by our Saviour are 
possessed by the Catholic Church, alone; 
she, alone, of all the Christian bodies, is 
one in her dogmas and her discipline, pos- 
sessing a central organ indispensable to 
unity; she alone is holy, Catholic, apostolic, 
putting on the lips of her children for nine- 
teen centuries back, these words of the 
apostles: "I believe in the Church, one 
holy Catholic Apostolic. " — "The sects, 7 ' 



36 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

says Dr. Martensen, a protestant, "wish to 
be in touch with the Apostles; but they 
have lost the historical thread which per- 
mits this.' 7 

II. Whoever does not deny God must submit to 
Catholicism. 

We can do no more here than point out 
the proofs of the Christian and Catholic 
religion ; in order to comprehend their full 
force, we should see them developed at 
length in a theological treatise. Plainly 
stated, they are incontestably clear. It is, 
at least, evident that we could not regard 
a man as unreasoning or imprudent, for 
admitting them. Does a sensible man, 
even in the most important transactions, 
require more urgent reasons to come to a 
decision? If he have but one chance in 
twenty to sa\e his fortune, his life or his 
honor, he reckons as nothing the greatest 
fatigues and hardships. Now, we have ab- 
solutely conclusive proofs of revelation. 
It not only answers our highest, most 
ardent wishes, it is not only a source of 
peace and happiness to the individual, to 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE. 37 

the family, to society, but it is recom- 
mended by proofs so incontestable, that to 
deny them were to challenge Providence 
and question the immortality of the soul — 
the principles on which are based the dif- 
ference between good and evil, the founda- 
tions of moral and social order. And so, 
positivists, as, for example, Proudhon in 
his work Justice in the Revolution and the 
Church, and again in his Confessions of a 
Revolutionist, agree that "there is no 
middle way for a logical mind between 
Atheism and Catholicism, " that the Cath- 
olic Church is the purest, the most com- 
plete, the clearest manifestation of the 
divine essence, that she alone is capable of 
worshipping it. 

Many of those who reject revelation 
affect a socalled Natural religion ; but it is 
a rope- dance in which very few can main- 
tain their balance. Some, like Julius 
Simon, come sooner or later to Christ, who 
with open arms awaits their coming and 
receives them. As to the other deists, 
their god becomes deaf, blind and mute, he 
gives way to the god of the pantheists. 



Q 



8 FEOM DOUBT TO FAITH. 



Look at Eenan: after abandoning the 
Catholic Church, he very soon sees in Pro- 
vidence and the immortality of the soul, 
"only trite, clumsy, antiquated words," 
He comes to regard chastity, conjugal 
fidelity and the other virtues as empty 
titles, and goes as far as to incarnate in the 
life of the libertine, "the true philosophy 
of life. " 

A glance at the disastrous consequences 
of unbelief confirms the fitness of these ex- 
quisite words of La Bruyere, in his chapter 
on Free Thinkers : "if my religion is false, 
it is, indeed, the best set trap imaginable : 
to escape it was unavoidable. Whither 
can I go ? Where transport myself to dis- 
cover not merely anything better, but any- 
thing approaching it. It is much better to 
deny God than to associate Him with so 
specious and so complete a deception. " In 
fact, how can a person believe in God, and 
regard the Christian religion as false. In 
this case, the error, if error there be, must 
be attributed to Him. 

But it is equally impossible that the 
atheist have reason on his side, or that 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE. 39 

God deceive us. So great is the abasement 
of the Creator in a religion full of mysteries, 
astonishment ceases when we think of what 
the divine mercy is capable. It supplies 
the key to the most incomprehensible 
things. The mere thought that the infinite 
power and love are the explanation of so 
many strange things, was, according to 
Bossuet, sufficient to bring back the Prin- 
cess Palatine to the faith. 

III. The obligation of believing. 

When a man, as is his duty, seriously 
considers these fundamental proofs of reli- 
gion, when he endeavors to realize their 
full value, the time is not distant, when 
the truth will dawn on him clearly enough 
to kindle an act of faith. For, believing is 
not merely an act of good sense or wisdom; 
it is a fulfilment of a strict duty. The man 
who, on being convinced of the truth of 
revelation, stops short at the act of faith 
shall be condemned: "he who belie veth 
not shall be condemed." When God pro- 
poses His dogmas and precepts to us, He 
does not permit us to reject them accord- 
ing to our caprice. 



40 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

To claim that obedience on our part is a 
matter of choice is wholly indefensible. 
Our Lord, according to Scripture, moves 
heaven and earth to teach us and point out 
the manner in which He wishes to be 
honored. He urges, exhorts, threatens; 
He sacrificed Himself in His human nature 
to cement with His blood the stones of the 
Church, which He obliges us to enter. The 
apostles repeat the teaching of Christ that 
there is no other name on earth by which 
we may be saved than the name of Jesus, 
and that any other Gospel, though coming 
from heaven must not be listened to. 
Could the divine precept be more urgent 
and imperative ? 

To escape this command, it may be 
said : is not revelation a privilege f With- 
out doubt, but a privilege imposed on us 
by authority for our benefit and God's 
glory, on whom we depend, body and soul. 
Supernatural life, which is proferred to us, 
and into which we are introduced by an 
act of faith, can no more be declined, than 
natural existence be ended by suicide. For 
any one, accordingly, who has a proper 



THE REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE 41 

regard for God or his own interests, it is 
either a crime or a folly to renounce his 
faith or not to endeavor to recover it. He 
will search in vain for a serious excuse to 
free his conscience from this imperative 
duty. 




Chapter III. 
The Dispositions to believe. 

It The pride of a too exacting reason is a great 
hindrance. 

In examining the proofs of Beligion, 
developed at length by Christian Apolog- 
ists, it is important to be at one's guard 
against an error into which most rational- 
ists plunge, and which at the very outset 
may imperil a conversion. We may not 
seek in those arguments, conclusive though 
they be, the direct evidence and the ab- 
solute clearness of the axioms of mathe- 
matics. To demand for a series of truths 
a standard of demonstration of which they 
are not capable is a vice of method which, 
in advance, renders all search fruitless. 

There are various sets of truths, the sub- 
ject matter of which, otherwise absolutely 
certain, does not reveal itself to us in the 
same light. Some truths are more con- 
genial to our minds, and are understood 

(42) 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 43 

more easily than others: they address 
themselves only to the intellect and in no- 
wise concern the affective faculties, that is 
to say, the heart and sensibilities. The 
examination of religious truths, on the 
other hand, imports serious consequences, 
the thought of which is capable of disturb- 
ing the very depths of the soul. In their 
study, from the heart particularly, arise 
clouds that obscure the light of the very 
best arguments. 

These words of Vanvenargues are, there- 
fore, truer than would appear at first sight: 
" 'tis the heart which is sceptical with 
worldlings ; when the heart is thoroughly 
converted it draws them." Proud reason, 
excessively exacting, passions rebelling 
against the yoke of religion : these are the 
principle obstacles to faith. 

Why is it that in this our own time, oi 
the many souls that we should expect to 
see bounding upwards to God, so few 
recognize Him ? Do you hear from time to 
time the heart-rending plaints of all those 
prodigal children of the Catholic Church, 
who sigh after their lost faith ? "I should 



44 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

wish to have my mother's faith and 
virtue ;" "O my God, give me faith," they 
write in prose and verse. Why do those 
impulses reach their aim and those conver- 
sions prove abortive ? Should it be taken 
as an indication that God does not hear 
those sobbings of a heart in trouble, or if 
He does hear He despises them ? Not at 
all : the steely sky impenetrable above us 
and against which human cries dash them- 
selves in vain is merely a poetic fancy. 
There are no prayers no matter how faint 
that God rejects; but He looks for more 
than transient whims that merely come 
and go. 

However sincere they may be for the 
moment, those cries are not kept up by 
humble and persevering prayer, which un- 
fortunately knocks at the door of the in- 
visible world. They proceed from a heart 
that continues to serve its earthly interests 
and will not take its inspirations from 
above. If at times it humbles itself to the 
point of adoration, it again assumes the 
attitude of mistrust and pride. Unconsci- 
ously or not, we would have God accom- 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 45 

modate Himself to our truly extravagant 
caprices. With the incredulous Thomas, 
we would have Christ make us feel, not 
only His Sacred flesh, but the influence 
also of His divinity. We are like an un- 
fortunate fellow, who having fallen during 
the night down a precipice and on seeing a 
charitable guide come to rescue him, should 
reject his proposal and demand that he 
show himself in daylight. 

In this regard, nothing is more sadly in- 
structive than the crisis which, fifty years 
ago, landed Eenan out of the sanctuary he 
was about to enter, amongst the worst 
enemies of the Catholic Eeligion. He too, 
if we may judge from his written con- 
fidences, has given expression to some 
regrets: but how arrogant and proud in 
the face of Providence. He should not 
have abandoned his faith, wrote he to his 
sister, on the 11th April 1845, "if God had 
given him at that moment, the interior 
light which carries evidence to the ex- 
clusion of all doubt. " He admits, at the 
same time, that to look on the Christian 
Eeligion as false "is proof of a narrow 



46 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

mind, ?? because "a lie can never produce 
such fine fruits. " In spite of these avowals, 
Eenan who was always, as you know, a 
poor logician, hesitates and doubts. And, 
as if he was anxious to be relieved of the 
fearful responsibility he had incurred, he 
endeavors to represent the condition of his 
soul as the fatal result of circumstances. 
"It does not depend on me, to see other- 
wise than I do, 7? says he to his sister: and 
she long since emancipated from all reli- 
gion, encourages the free-thinker, who was 
yet undetermined : and tells him that ' 'no- 
body is obliged to believe. " 

By timely hints, by expressions flip- 
pantly thrown out, this woman, whose in- 
tellectual culture and mental distinction 
do not lessen the immense mischief, 
arouses, strengthens his inclinations to- 
wards scepticism in religious matters and 
his rising horror for clerical discipline. An 
absolute want of humility in Eenan, the 
reading of sceptical or pantheistic philoso- 
phers of Germany, when he was not suffi- 
ciently provided with a sound logic to 
demolish their sophisms, succeeded in 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 47 

making him an apostate. It is not even 
necessary to suppose, that in the one who 
was to write later on the Abbess of Jouarre 
and to give such lewd counsels to youth, 
there were some other springs of action 
less potent, and which we will not mention. 
Anyway, we do not consent to see in 
Eenan, as has been said, "a slave of con- 
science, " "a loyal man faithful to duty." 
No, seek as you will in his life and writ- 
ings, you will not be able to discover a 
generous and upright character. 

Be assured, that when he commences his 
studies of philosophy and theology in the 
seminary of S. Sulpice, it is not the austere 
obligations of sacerdotal life, nor the 
charms of truth that attract him. He 
studies indeed with ardor, but it is to dis- 
tinguish himself. During his hours of 
study, his aim is not to glorify his God 
later on, nor the enlightening, comforting, 
and uplifting of souls. Such a ministry is 
well for ordinary minds : he considers him- 
self a superior essence, if we may judge 
from his Remembrances of childhood and boy- 
hood. "The first time," says this peacock, 



48 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

L 'my classmates heard ine argue in Latin 
they were astonished. They saw that I 
belonged to a different race, and that I 
should take up the march just where they 
should leave off." A year after, he con- 
fides to his sister, that "a budding reputa- 
tion makes him feel already sure that 
he will be able to quit the ranks of the in- 
sipid vulgar." 

Such men are too selfish and too proud to 
sacrifice to truth, especially religious 
truth, which harmonizes badly with their 
selfishness. We can believe Eenan, usually 
so silent about his shortcomings, when he 
writes to his seminary friend Father Cog- 
nat : i <I am an egotist, entrenched in my- 
self I mock all." Where we can question 
his sincerity, is when he tells his readers, 
that his loss of faith is the result of his 
study of history and exegesis. As a matter 
of fact, from the time he commenced the 
study of philosophy, the taste for indepen- 
dence, the desire for destruction and the 
false intellectual direction he receives, 
from sources which he visits unknown to 
his teachers, throw him out of the right 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 49 

way. He thinks, forsooth, that "the first 
requisite for a natural philosophy is to be 
without any previous faith. ?? In his lan- 
guage it means that it is necessary to 
approach that study, with a real, effective, 
universal doubt. It is an erroneous 
method, and very dangerous : a man who 
does not take reason as a criterion in dis- 
cerning truth from falsehood and does not 
pay heed to the indispensable resources of 
learning handed down by authority — such 
a one, to be consistent, must remain buried 
in scepticism. 

Eenan, as his confidences prove, ceased 
to believe the testimony of human reason, 
when he rejected the notion of faith. "We 
shudder at the uncertainty of all human 
opinions based only on reason. " 

"Very early, ?? he relates in another 
place, "I lost all confidence in those ab- 
stract metaphysics, which pretend to be 
the science among sciences, and to resolve 
alone the deeper problems of mankind. 
Later on, Positivism appeared to me to be 
the only source of truth." 

In short, he already doubts the existence 



50 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

of God, and the Spirituality of the Soul; 
and instead of seeking in prayer, close to 
his professors or among the great Christian 
Apologists, the solution of his difficulties, 
he stands up "to challenge God." And 
as if he was not strong enough or bold 
enough to break the yoke of Eeligion, he 
seeks in the objections of philosophers, 
especially in the cloudy philosophy of 
Immanuel Kant and his followers, reasons 
to stimulate his instincts of freethinker. 
The one who claims to reject all authority 
in matters philosophical writes to his sis- 
ter: "I am very much pleased with your 
German thinkers, although they are some- 
what sceptical and pantheistic. If you go 
to Koenigsberg, do not fail to make a pil- 
grimage to the grave of Kant. ?? 

In a word, if Eenan, abandoned his faith 
it is his own fault. He himself admitted, 
that on this score he was not without blame. 
We should be disposed, not indeed to ex- 
cuse, but to have pity on him, when with 
excited feelings he cries out: "How many 
times have I cursed the day when I began 
to think ! How many times have I envied 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 51 

the lot of the humble, whom I see around 
me so happy and peaceful ! God preserve 
them from doing as I have done." But yet 
there is his colossal vanity; and we reflect 
with grief and indignation, on the forty 
years spent in stifling in the souls of believ- 
ers, their faith in God, in Christ, in virtue, 
in the future life, knowing full well that 
the disappearance of the Christian Eeligion 
entails the death of morality and the true 
happiness of the civilized world. Now all 
is explained, when we recollect that Eenan, 
according to his own avowal, was inclined 
"fco mock all" and to be devoid of frank- 
ness in the intercourse of life. 

2. Necessity of Adaptation : Humility, Prayer, 

We know why Eenan apostatized: hu- 
mility, uprightness, magnanimity of soul 
were wanting in him. They, who, in spite 
of sore trials, keep their faith or regain it, 
such as Maine de Biron, Marceau, Gratry, 
Lacordaire, Louis Veuillot, Augustin 
Thierry, etc., take the opposite course. 
They seek and love the light, not only that 
they may become more learned, but that 



52 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

they may be better ; they do not strive to 
detect God in the wrong, that they may be 
relieved of the obligation of believing or of 
submitting their lives to His precepts. 
They go out to Him with their whole soul. 
They know that to be thoroughly versed in 
religious truth, it is not always enough to 
have it placed before our reason as an ob- 
ject before the camera of the photographer. 
Faith is not "a chemical precipitate, 77 
which we may examine out of curiosity 
and without interest, "an objective phe- 
nomenon 7 7 which passes in review and be- 
fore which we must remain passive. At 
best, the method adopted by positivists 
would hold when applied to questions of 
the moral order if the vision of the soul 
were perfectly clear. Unfortunately, even 
after the proofs of religious truths have 
been clearly stated, there can be in our 
own selves, hindrances which prevent their 
taking effect or bringing conviction. To 
be penetrated by them, we must prepare 
and fit our soul by a kind of interior pur- 
gation to receive the light which comes to 
us from men, and more particularly still, 
that which comes directly from God. 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 53 

Does not all knowledge presuppose an 
adaptation between the soul and its object? 
It is one of the essential laws that preside 
at the formation of a thought and even of a 
sensation. So philosophers have explained 
truth : a likeness or equation between the 
subject knowing, that is to say the intelli- 
gence, and the object known, of which it 
gives a picture. Veritas est adaequatio inter 
rem et intellectum. Now, it is evident that 
the better a faculty is disposed and the 
freer from hindrances which arrest, deflect, 
distort the action of the object that is 
reflected in it, the clearer will the truth be 
and the more exact. An ill-formed mirror 
or one covered here and there with vapor 
will give a confused and lying image of the 
object represented. More perfectly fash- 
ioned than the instrument made by us, the 
eye very quickly gets accustomed to dis- 
tances and the dimensions of things. But 
a thin straw placed before it is enough to 
trouble the vision. Instead of an external 
obstacle, instead of a passing object, sup- 
pose an organic disease, Daltonism for 
instance, the eye will no longer be sensible 
to the red, green or purple rays. 



54 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

In the affairs of the heart there are also 
facts, which, while they are clear enough 
to some, remain undecipherable puzzles to 
others. Not unfreqaently, do we meet 
persons who complain that they are not un- 
derstood. Personally I think those people 
are not always very clear. Still it results, 
none the less, that some souls are a sealed 
letter to mind which have a profound 
knowledge, but have not that untold deli- 
cacy and flexibility of feeling; and their 
cold and contracted temperament does not 
harmonize with the characters with which 
they come in contact. 

Every severe strain between the soul and 
the truths of the moral order which enjoin 
heavy obligations on it, interferes with its 
understanding them: if the geometrical 
laws, it has been frequently said, were as 
much opposed to our passions and passing 
interests, their certitude would be ques- 
tioned and combated by many sophists. 

This is no exaggeration: we see every 
day consciences perverted by habits of 
crime, calling almost in good faith that 
which is evil, good, what is good, evil. 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 55 

For instance, all your excellent arguments 
will never convince anarchists that their 
cause is unjust and immoral, if you do not 
rectify their wills. 

It is easy, therefore, to understand, that 
in order to receive the faithful impress of 
Christian truth, it is necessary to study it 
with the dispositions of which Christ gives 
us the perfect model, and, as far as we 
can, to copy Him. One of His human 
traits, and the most striking, is humility. 
This is why He demands it from those to 
whom He will communicate Himself: Et 
cum humilibus sermocinatio ejus. On the 
other hand, from afar off does He look on 
the proud man, who, having nothing x)f his 
own, essays to treat with Him on terms of 
equality. His goodness having urged Him 
to reveal Himself, it was undoubtedly 
necessary that He present Himself in 
unmistakable characteristics. But in His 
quality of Lord and Master, He had at the 
same time the right to demand authorita- 
tively our intellect and will — to oblige us 
to humble ourselves before the hidden 
mysteries of the infinite essence. 



56 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

Perfect ideal of Justice and Sanctity, B^e 
requires in those who would approach him 
not so much the gifts of a superior intelli- 
gence, as the excellence of moral disposi- 
tions. And for this we must be thankful, 
indeed. In this way He enhances the 
value of religious convictions and at the 
same time makes them attainable to every 
honest will. If the facility attaining to 
faith, on which depends our eternal future, 
were to be refutated according to intellect- 
ual acumen, talent, genius or science, and 
not by honesty of soul or the endeavor to 
become better, would not God seem to 
prefer intellectual to moral culture: and 
this would be really shocking to us. 

Prayer is at the same time an act of 
humility and an act of trust in God. For 
this reason, it is the most indispensable 
and the surest means of disposing ourselves 
for the gift of faith and of obtaining from 
heaven more light and strength. How 
many converts could repeat with Marceau: 
' 6 I see because I have reflected and prayed." 
Uttered from a humble and persevering 
heart, prayer ascends to heaven like a 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 57 

pointed arrow: "the prayer of him that 
humbleth himself shall pierce the clouds"; 
and he will not depart until it come nigh, 
and he will not be comforted, and he will 
not depart until the Most High behold: 
" Where pride is, there also shall be 
reproach; but where humility is, there 
also is wisdom," says Holy Writ. 

3. Third Obstacle — The Senses and Heart. 

God abandons the proud. He hides 
Himself from the soul absorbed in the 
thirst for worldly pleasures. It is not suf- 
ficiently disengaged nor sufficiently pure 
to see truth and follow it. It is not master 
of itself; how can it turn to God? It does 
not care ; it lives only for those things of 
which it is enamored. If you speak to it 
of a religion, the maintainence of which is 
incompatible with its criminal condition 
it will turn away as from an unpleasant 
memory. 

What will not che slave of his passions 
do, to distract his attention and to forget ? 
Brought, as it were forcibly, before the 
proofs of our faith, he instinctively turns 



58 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

to objections and endeavors to discover 
means to excuse himself from believing. 
Oftentimes, disregarded Truth takes re- 
venge by gradually assuming a veil; so 
that conscience, unquiet at first, winds up 
by becoming tranquil and sleeps in an 
obscurity, which is almost midnight. Just 
as when mud rises from the bottom of a 
pond, the water loses its transparence and 
does not reflect the blue sky above, the 
rays of the sun are for it as if they were 
not. Purged of its impurities, it will be- 
come again a limpid sheet, where the stars 
of the firmament will be reflected: "Blessed 
are the clean of heart, for they shall see 
God." Once a young man, having pro- 
posed to Eavignan his doubts against the 
faith, the great preacher, before entering 
on a discussion with him, made him go to 
confession. When the prodigal child arose 
from his knees, shedding tears of joy and 
repentance, the difficulties which he had 
considered insoluble, had disappeared. 

We would not be understood as saying 
that the obstacles of believing are always 
those which it would be shameful to avow 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 59 

— such as the inclination to sensuality or 
avarice. Frequently indeed, still less fre- 
quently than among believing and practical 
Catholics, do we meet with men professing 
no faith, who have lofty ideals, are of 
kindly character and lead lives of honesty, 
or, at least, exempt from those scandals 
which are the outgrowth of the world's 
code and the world's independence. On 
the ocean of scepticism, are to be seen 
those rare and privileged swimmers — rari 
nantes — who hold out, longer or shorter, 
near the abyss where founders the crowd 
of free-thinkers. 

Why do those souls, whom we should 
call naturally Christian, whom the moral 
of the Gospel attracts, turn aside from the 
dogmas, which are its necessary basis, and 
remain outside the Church? Is it not a 
symptom of untold carelessness about their 
duties to God and their last end? Of a 
truth, the Catechism which they once 
learnt, if they have not forgotten it, has 
never been thoroughly understood. Whilst 
the current objections of free-thought are 
permeating their minds in a thousand 



60 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

forms, the religious instruction which 
should have enabled them to smother error 
or resist it, far from growing up was 
stopped suddenly or obliterated. 

4. These obstacles removed by docility, the spirit 
of sacrifice, fidelity to good works. 

Among those men of whom we should be 
sorry to speak ill, the distinction of mind 
and amiability of character, enhanced, if 
you will, by a correct attitude, lend them- 
selves easily to an independence of spirit, 
usually praise-worthy when practised 
among men, but reprehensible when ap- 
plied to God. 

"Under a really generous spirit, lurk also 
the refinements of an almost unconscious 
egoism, which rebels against all sustained 
effort to regain the faith ; they do not want 
to snap the ties that hold them back from 
God. How a man who denies to his mind 
and imagination, to his heart and senses, 
none of those desires and enjoyments and 
curiosities which the code of the world 
authorizes, but which religion condemns — 
how will he, without violence, restrain his 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 61 

passions to the narrow circle fixed by 
faith ? He needs a more strenuous desire 
for good, a more sustained and whole- 
souled effort. He must not admit degrees 
in his renunciations, nor reserve for him- 
self, like Saul, the best part of the sacri- 
fices which God asks ; in a word, he ought 
to submit to religious truth as far as that 
truth reveals itself to him, he ought to be 
able to say that he is loyal with his con- 
science on the subject of faith. 

Christ is truth — active and living truth: 
via, Veritas et vita. To understand Him 
well, it is necessary to imitate and follow 
Him. All good works bring us closer to 
Him. The practices of Christianity, kept 
up with a real desire for light, never fail 
of their effect on the soul. Nor must you 
say, that to act outwardly as a Christian 
without having perfect faith is dishonest 
and savors of hypocrisy. Where do you 
see an absence of sincerity or of prudence 
in a man, who, taking heart to spend a life 
virtuous and pleasant to God, begins by 
doing his duty as far as in him lies, and 
labors to bring his convictions into keep- 
ing with his conduct ? 



62 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

Undoubtedly the logical order demands 
that reason be taught and enlightened first 
of all. And such is the course we must 
endeavor to pursue. But it would be rash 
indeed, to strive to impose inflexible rules 
on the operations of the Holy Ghost ; the 
Holy Ghost, with an admirable pliancy, 
makes Himself all to all ; and when the 
soul is right, He knows how to compound 
with the methods, even though they be un- 
usual. There are souls, who need to ad- 
mire and particularly love religion in order 
to know it well and to arrive at the cer- 
titude, demanded by an act of faith. In 
observing some of the precepts of religion, 
they get a better view of its beauty, its 
grandeur, its holiness. And this view 
opens their minds to acknowledge of things 
they had misunderstood. In fact, it is the 
truth which shows its many-sided beauty, 
and, bit by bit, reveals itself more thor- 
oughly, in proportion as we draw nearer 
and love it better. 

Was it not by this route that Maine de 
Biron was borne back again to the faith ? 
Driven by a sense of his misery, he tries 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 63 

at first, to find among the fluctuations of 
mortal things, something permanent. To 
approach God, who alone is not transitory, 
he strives to become better, he prays, he 
performs good works, and the delicious 
taste and deep peace that he feels, multiply 
the clearness of his intellect, and he finally 
receives the grace of faith: "O taste and 
see how sweet the Lord is : blessed is the 
man that hopeth in Him" Ps. 33, 8. "I 
have seen," said the famous Frederick 
Bastiat, a few days before his death, "that 
the best kind of people are among those 
that believe. I acted like them ; I took up 
the matter in the right way — humility": 
and cleansed by the sacrament of Penance, 
he exclaimed, dying: "the truth, at last I 
see the truth." 

This method is counselled by prudence, 
and presents nothing but advantages, when 
a man in quest of religious truth, perceives 
that the darkness by which he is encom- 
passed is slow to disappear. He sees 
clearly, in spite of all difficulties, that 
Catholic Christianity, compared with the 
other systems of religion and morals, is 



64 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

undoubtedly the best proven, the most 
reasonable, the most logical, the most won- 
derful, by the virtues it fosters, by the in- 
terior peace it gives, by the hope it en- 
genders and strengthens. Why then should 
he fear a mistake in submitting his mind 
and heart to that sovereign rule ; since, all 
things considered, it is still his safest 
course; since he can justly presume, from 
many examples, that the long-wished-for 
light, will sooner or later appear in suffici- 
ent degree to calm his troubles. A noble 
convert from Anglicanism, Lady Herbert 
of Lea, has expressed the same thought in 
a phraze that is startling in its picturesque 
familiarity: " People imagine/ 7 says she, 
"that it is necessary to have all their 
doubts dissipated before taking the supreme 
step. On the contrary, one must plunge 
in, if he wants to see and know everything; 
God rewards in that way our faith and 
simplicity." 

If, however, a person have not faith 
enough, to undertake Christian practices, 
he can, he ought at least, to beg assistance 
from the Divine Author of the universe 



THE DISPOSITIONS TO BELIEVE. 65 

and give Him proof of his docility. Even 
though he be tempted against God, it is 
still his duty, to ask strength and light. 
He who prays and does not encourage his 
doubts has in him already the germ of 
faith, which the grace of God will nourish 
and develop through the most adverse cir- 
cumstances. It develops amid sorrows 
and deaths and trials of every sort, especi- 
ally in good works, and one day conscience 
learns with joy that within itself the celes- 
tial flower of faith is in full bloom for ever. 



Chapter IV. 

The Duty and the Manner of Believing. 

1. Besetting doubts: their causes. 

God, therefore, will reveal Himself 
sooner or later, to him who seeks Him 
with his whole soul and strives to believe 
in proportion as he sees the light. The 
tiny luminous speck will grow, by and by, 
and remove all serious doubt. Even then, 
however, not to lessen the merit insepar- 
able from faith, God proportions His light 
to our needs, and usually is not lavish with 
it. Notwithstanding irrefragable proof, 
the object of faith always remains shadowy, 
impalpable and, as it were, invisible. 

Indeed, one of the conditions of an act 
of Christian faith is that it be free. Owing 
to the nature of the act, we are at liberty to 
exercise it or not, just as we will. Now, 
how could we refuse our assent to the 
divinity of the Word, for instance, if that 

(66) 



DUTY AND MANNER OF BELIEVING. 67 

truth, which one of the objects of our 
faith, were absolutely transparent. It 
would be no longer faith, but science ; nay 
more, if there be question of supernatural 
truths or mysteries, such an unclouded 
view of them would be simply the beatific 
vision — the act of intuition which is the 
privilege of the elect in heaven. 

Between the one who believes in the 
proper sense of the word and the one who 
knows, the difference is not in the degree of 
certitude. It consists in this, that the man 
of science learns a thing directly from its 
object. He sees it in itself, or in its causes 
or effects, or in some other ray, which it 
projects. On the other hand to believe, to 
exercise an act of faith, is to admit some- 
thing which we do not see, on the author- 
ity of a witness, who is the intermediate 
agent between us and the object. Clearly, 
if the witness be well-informed about the 
matters he relates, if his honesty be as- 
sured — and these conditions can be easily 
ascertained — we shall be as sure of the 
facts he declares to us as if they had 
happened before our eyes. 



68 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

Nevertheless, when those facts are an- 
cient and remote ones, of an extraordinary 
character, the intelligence, especially when 
spurred on by an evil disposition, feels it- 
self allured by difficulties more or less 
specious. It is inclined to resist with still 
greater energy the proofs which come from 
miracles. 

Now, many of the truths which belong 
to the domain of revelation although in- 
telligible are however incomprehensible 
to our reason ; and those mysteries, as it 
were by reaction, cast their shadows on the 
facts that witness to their absolute cer- 
titude. And so, even after the reason has 
been enlightened and convinced, all the 
clouds will not have been dissipated. And 
the higher the truths, based on unquestion- 
able evidence, the more the mind shall be 
called on to put forth an effort to clear 
away the troublous thoughts, that, like 
night-birds, hover around him. The firmest 
and most enlightened beliefs are not always 
proof against those anxieties which pre- 
cede reflection. Well, provided that doubt 
comes on us only by surprise and without 
our compliance,' faith remains intact. 



DUTY AND MANNER OF BELIEVING. 69 

2. The remedy for doubt: appeals to reason 
and will. 

No matter how obstinate the doubt, it is 
always our duty to combat it. And the 
task will be easy to any one who has 
thoroughly studied, if only once in his life, 
any one of the classic proofs of his faith. 
After a careful and honest examination he 
will be convinced that faith does not destroy 
reason but perfects it, that its object is as 
well established as any historical fact of 
which no one doubts, and that it is not 
only lawful but strictly obligatory to sub- 
scribe to it. His intellect, enlightened by 
these convincing proofs, which it cannot 
fail to see, knows, that any doubt, no 
matter what its origin, is both unreason- 
able and illogical. 

Then, no matter how specious the diffi- 
culties, a sensible man will give them the 
same answer as the celebrated infidel Vol- 
taire gave to similar ones: "if a truth is 
established for you does it become less a 
truth because it entails disturbing con- 
sequences V 7 

Now the facts on which my faith is based 



70 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

are as incontestable as the doings of 
Caesar. These facts prove that Christ is 
God ; and that He has founded the Catholic 
Church. It matters little that between the 
resulting consequences of these facts there 
arise mysteries, that is to say, things 
which I do not understand, because they 
are infinitely beyond my intelligence. My 
reason holds the two ends of the chain and 
calms my faith as to the invisible links 
which unite them; besides, being certain 
of the reasonableness of its faith if it hes- 
itates or is troubled by a doubt which it is 
powerless to solve directly it finds in the 
will an allpowerful ally. 

It is the duty of the will to interfere. In 
deciding indirectly on an act of faith, it is 
sufficient that the will interpose a salutary 
distraction to importunate doubts, that it 
avert the mind from difficulties more or 
less imaginary and disquieting, and bring 
it back to solid reasons, which reassure. 
In such a way does the skilful sailor 
struggle to extricate himself from rocks 
and storms and make for the open sea, 
only to set sails again at the first favorable 
wind to make straight for the port. 



DUTY AND MANNER OF BELIEVING. 71 

Sometimes the part performed by the 
will is still more prompt and decisive. 
Obedient to the voice of reason and duty, 
and influenced by the most sacred inter- 
ests, it can and should directly urge an 
already enlightened intellect to yield its 
assent and compel it to the act of faith. 
Just as a general of an army sure of the 
justice of his cause, sure of the excellence 
of his disposition of troops, and of the ad- 
vantageous position he holds, will silence 
the murmurs of timid and wavering sol- 
diers, and will rush ahead of his best troops 
and lead them to victory. 

S. These appeals to will are legitimate: faith 

is a virtuous and free act, no less 

than a conviction. 

Why should not this twofold interven- 
tion of will be legitimate? Where is the 
man that does not every day, without 
scruple, brush away, by an act of his will, 
difficulties that clash with his opinions, as 
soon as these opinions seem to him suffici- 
ently sustained. By one of these appeals 
to reason, Eenan, according to himself, 
put some checks on his scepticism and 



72 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

continued to believe in the reality of this 
physical world against Iinmanuel Kant: 
"Subjective scepticism has troubled me at 
times ; still it never made me seriously 
doubt about reality ; its objections, as far 
as I am concerned, are relegated to a land 
of f orgetfulness ; I do not think at all about 
them." 

Still, although it is the will which ulti- 
mately determines us to an act of faith, it 
is no less true, that faith is an act of the 
intellectual faculty. For the department 
of reason is to discern the true from the 
false, to judge the value of testimony upon 
which faith is based and measured; and 
according to the credence the witness de- 
serves to assent to a proposed truth. 

The will, therefore, waits to be enlight- 
ened, before emitting an act of faith, which 
it approaches, as it were, from the outside. 
Will may be called the nerve of intellect. 
Both the one and the other are as indis- 
pensable to man in believing revealed 
truths, as the eyes, wings and talons to a 
bird, to discover and seize its prey. 

In fact, brought face to face with revealed 



DUTY AND MANNER OF BELIEVING. 73 

truth, the human intellect with this faculty 
would scarcely understand. When not 
blinded by prejudice, the intellect, it is 
true, might look upon revelation as a 
probable fact and even worthy of credence. 
Still the assent, if given at all, would be 
weak and vacillating. The mind, deprived 
of that evidence which renders doubt im- 
possible, would oscillate perpetually be- 
tween Yes and No, just as it might be in- 
fluenced by the arguments in favor of reve- 
lation or those opposed to it. 

In any case, such an assent would be the 
exclusive result of a philosophical demon- 
stration and based on it, only. Now such 
an assent would deserve neither praises 
nor rewards which are the award of faith. 
They are due to faith, only in so far as it 
is an act of virtue, and it is of the essence 
of a virtuous and meritorious act, that it 
be free. 

To conclude, every soul has the right 
and the duty to become and to remain a 
believer. His free-will, by arresting and 
fixing reason on the strongest proofs of 
revelation, must contribute to produce in 



74 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

it firm religious convictions. It is its duty 
then to lead it on through difficulties more 
apparent than real, towards a complete 
assent to the word of God. And He, as 
sovereign truth and infinite goodness, de- 
mands the complete homage of our intel- 
lect and heart. He has the right to require 
an entire faith and an entire love ; and the 
homage of our mind and of our heart would 
not be entire, if it were not at the same 
time free and absolute. 



Chapter V. 

Faith is a Grace within the reach of 
every one. 

I. The promise of Christ is universal. 

Are our good desires, our efforts of in- 
tellect and will of themselves capable of 
producing an act of faith? If there be 
question of an act of supernatural faith, in 
which, by assenting to a revealed truth, or 
the mere word of God, we are to merit His 
favor and contribute to our justification, 
no. An extraordinary help from heaven, 
the grace of God, must intervene to en- 
lighten our intellect and strengthen our 
will and to raise their acts above the 
natural sphere. 

If this wholly gratuitous assistance from 
God, which transforms our works and 
gives them a beauty and a value, in some 
sort infinite, be wanting, we cannot do 
anything to merit or to preserve the divine 

(75) 



76 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

friendship • for the life, of which grace is 
the source, as far transcends the life of in- 
telligence, as this latter does the life of the 
senses or inanimate matter : " Without me 
you can do nothing. " John XV, 5. 

Fortunately, whilst we remember that we 
need Him, our Saviour affirms also that 
His assistance shall never be wanting, and 
there is no one who cannot say with the 
Apostle: "I can do all things in Him who 
strengtheneth me." Phil. IV, 13. 

Supernatural faith is, therefore, essen- 
tially requisite for salvation ; on the other 
hand, no one attains to it by his own re- 
sources ; over and above our good disposi- 
tions is required a particular help of God 
— a help which no human effort could 
secure, were God dealing in strict justice 
only. 

But just here arises a formidable diffi- 
culty which has always been a stumbling 
block to weak souls. Can you not say to 
me: We understand very well that those 
who live among Christian people and who 
seek after religious truth with an upright 
will and a pure heart will sooner or later 



FAITH A GRACE &C. 77 

come to the faith ? We can easily believe 
that God will lavish on them the light and 
strength which they need and will furnish 
them with a thousand opportunities of 
learning revelation and of being converted. 

But, think of the enormous number of 
souls on whom one ray of revelation never 
falls. It would be strange that amongst 
them we could not find some that are in 
good faith. Now how shall those dis- 
inherited ones come to believe % Will God 
reveal Himself to them in sufficient meas- 
ure to save them ? Show us, above their 
heads, the star sent, of old, to the Wise 
men to conduct them to the cradle of the 
Infant Saviour. 

No, our God is not like the deist's, "a 
dead God," or according to the expression 
of Scherer u a machinist lost in the clouds," 
powerless to help those who invoke Him. 
He not only cooperates in the evolution of 
those whom He has created; His super- 
natural providence follows with merciful 
eyes all those souls that are capable of cor- 
respondence with Him. 

That all men be saved, is the desire of 



78 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

God, a hundred times voiced in the Holy 
Scriptures. "He wills not the death of the 
sinner; but that he be converted. ?? "He 
will have all men to be saved and to come 
to the knowledge of the truth. ? ' Faithful to 
the teaching of her founder, the Church, 
after Him, claims that He died to save the 
human race; and she anathemizes those, 
who, with Calvin and Jansenius, would 
shorten the arms of Jesus on the cross and 
have Him embrace only the elect. 

2. Indispensable truths. 

In opening to us by His blood the king- 
dom of heaven, Christ respects our liberty. 
He desires that we respond to His ad- 
vances. And, not to go beyond the limits 
of our subject, He requires from all men 
two conditions very easy of fulfilment : not 
to place any wilful obstacle to grace, which 
will find its way into every well-disposed 
soul; and also to elicit, with God's help, 
an act of faith in some of the supreme 
truths. 

Now there are truths, which it is essen- 
tial to believe in order to be saved : "With- 
out faith it is impossible to please God ; 



FAITH A GRACE &C. 79 

and he that believeth not shall be con- 
demned." Hebr. XI, 6. The circle of 
truths, which we must believe with explicit 
faith, is not the same for everybody. It 
becomes wider or i^arrower, according to 
the degree of instruction of the one who 
believes, and the faculties at hand for 
developing and completing it. 

What is the minimum, indispensable yet 
sufficient, condition, in the eyes of God for 
the salvation of a person generally, who 
lives outside of the Christian Eeligion ? It 
is enough, we think, to believe in God as a 
rewarder, that is to say, in a God who 
communicates Himself by means known to 
them, punishes the wicked in His justice, 
pardons the sinner who prays and repents 
or rewards the good in His infinite mercy. 

In speaking thus, we voice an opinion, 
which in the absence of unquestionable 
proofs, rests on very solid grounds, and 
the orthodoxy of which is endorsed by 
many ancient theologians. 

The other system, which requires explicit 
faith in the mysteries of the Trinity and 
the Incarnation as an absolute condition 



80 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

for salvation, does not impress us very 
much. We seek in vain for proofs that 
compel us to accept its too rigid doctrine. 
The Apostle, as a matter of fact, in the 
text just quoted, speaking of the articles 
concerning which explicit faith is neces- 
sary for salvation, mentions only the 
existence of God and His quality as 
remunerator. 

Again, we do not see why the conditions 
demanded from the heathen should be 
more severe under the New Law than 
under the Old; and why the opposing 
theologians should exact more from the 
present-day Negro, outside the Gospel, 
than from the Ethiopian of old. Would 
they have Christ come to diminish the 
number of the elect, to narrow the gates of 
heaven, rather then widen them by His 
glorious triumph over death and sin ! 

3. These truths are accessible, even to the 
most abandoned. 

The doctrine we espouse, helps us very 
much in solving the difficulty raised a 
moment ago. Not only is it clear to us 
that God is obliged to reveal Himself as 



FAITH A GRACE &C. 81 

Creator and as Judge to souls who strive 
towards the right way and practice their 
duty as far as they know it, but we can 
easily understand how various and infal- 
lible the means which will bring a man, 
apparently the most abandoned, to the act 
of faith; and we thank God for learning 
more thoroughly this consoling truth: 
none of those who obey their conscience 
faithfully, strive to enlighten it, struggle 
towards the right way, avoid evil up to 
their light and strength, none of those will 
die without having attained supernatural 
faith which introduces the humble creature 
into the family of God. 

How are these merciful ideas to be 
realized 1 ? This is the place to explain, 
and in a few words. Infinite are the ways 
in which the voice of God may make itself 
heard. They vary with the time, the 
country and with the person. The action 
of the Holy Ghost adapts itself to the 
thousand circumstances by which the in- 
dividual's life is developed and modified 
with an admirable versatility. To one, 
He will speak by interior inspiration; to 



82 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

another He will send one of His Angels or 
a preacher of the Gospel. It would be an 
easy matter to collect from missionaries 
plenty of facts, which demonstrate the in- 
genious solicitude and tenderness of Pro- 
vidence for His humblest children. Some 
have been pursued for a long time by a 
religious idea, which on a blessed day they 
found incarnated in Christianity. Some 
one receiving the visit of a missionary for 
the first time, have experienced a vague 
feeling that there is a master in heaven, 
that communes with souls by mysterious 
means, and brings them, if they deserve it, 
rewards of pardon for the past and of un- 
speakable happiness for the future. 

And, since there is question here only of 
those articles which we must believe, as 
theologians word it, necessitate medii, that 
is to say, which are absolutely required for 
salvation, it seems that the knowledge of 
these truths can partially reach the heathen 
by way of tradition. In most false reli- 
gions they crop up again in the fables and 
superstitions in which they have been en- 
veloped. And so, we may believe, that 



FAITH A GRACE &C. 83 

not only the Protestant, but also tlie Jew 
and the Mussulman, who does not wilfully 
hide away from the light of Christianity, 
and endeavors to live honestly, will find 
under the influence of divine grace, in 
those primitive notions, the first basis of 
his worship, the indispensable elements 
yet wholly sufficient for an act of faith. 
He will believe, confused at least, in God 
as a remunerator, upon the authority of a 
revelation which has come from heaven 
and which reaches him, he does not know 
how. 

We may go farther. It is not at all un- 
likely, that from the depths of pagan reli- 
gions, where they lie buried, these prim- 
ordial truths often come to honest con- 
sciences, thanks of course to a particular 
assistance from the Holy Ghost ; and vague 
and corrupted though they seem, excite a 
flood of desires and supernatural assents, 
which gradually lead up to an act of faith. 
This is the answer St. Francis Xavier and 
Cosmas de Torre gave to the shocked 
Japanese, who asked if all their ancestors 
had been damned, for not having heard the 



84 FROM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

preaching of the Gospel. There is no one, 
replied the missionaries, who does not 
know the primary precepts of the Natural 
Law, especially in a nation as civilized as 
Japan. Well now, by conforming to the 
law as far as they know it, and correspond- 
ing to the graces, which in well disposed 
persons will be always at hand, your fath- 
ers must have been led by divine mercy to 
the knowledge and the practice of things 
necessary for salvation. 

It does not follow — it is needless to say 
— that the labors of our missionaries and 
their zeal to carry abroad the good news of 
Christ, are not very meritorious and very 
useful. It is certain that in those lands 
where the light of the true Faith does not 
shine, the means of salvation are rare and 
difficult of realization as compared with 
those lavished on Christians, especially 
Catholics. These like plants bathed from 
their birth in a supernatural atmosphere, 
are constantly drawn towards God, who 
alone, they know will give them eternal 
life and perpetual bloom. 

In proportion as those souls are widely 



FAITH A GRACE &C. 85 

removed from the more fortunate lands 
where the pure rays of revelation shine, 
the life-giving gleams of grace grow fainter; 
God thus wishing to stimulate His Apost- 
les to carry abroad the sacred torch, which 
He has placed in their hands. Notwith- 
standing His omnipotence, He acts in some 
respects in the order of grace just as in the 
order of nature. Instead of breaking up 
the solidarity which binds one to another 
the children of the same father, He appeals 
to their brotherly harmony, excites their 
energies, reserving miraculous interven- 
tion for those cases where the action of 
secondary causes proves ineffectual in pro- 
curing the ends, which His infinite wisdom 
proposes to itself. 



Conclusion. 

The man who loses his faith or comes to 
die without having regained it must of 
course above all things reproach himself 
and say: "If I do not believe it is in some 
measure my own fault." No matter how 
plausible the objections which he may en- 
counter, he can, if he so desire, obtain the 
necessary light and strength to resolve 
them. Without doubt, as his reason de- 
velops he is brought in contact with some 
difficulties, certain answers which satis- 
fied his youthful mind but will not suffice 
now. But whilst his powers of observa- 
tion have become more acute and more 
developed, they at the same time more 
easily detect the weak spots in the soph- 
istries by which his faith is assailed ; on 
reflection he discovers bulwarks to his 
faith which he had not observed before 
and foundations more deeply laid than he 
had suspected. 

This is the reason why he is always 
. (86) 



CONCLUSION. 87 

bound to put forth an effort to escape from 
the shifting soil of scepticism to the solid 
ground of faith. No obstacle must turn 
him aside : if he does not entrench himself 
within himself like the short-sighted egot- 
ist ; if his love of righteousness, if his de- 
sire to contribute to the welfare of man- 
kind be sufficiently serious to draw him 
towards the only one who can crown his 
enterprise; if he love religious truth; if 
he seek it with his heart no less than with 
his mind, God, whose grace is ever present, 
will go out to meet him, will calm his 
fears, and will show him how consoling it 
is to kneel down and say peccavi, and — by 
this avowal the more meritorious because 
the more costly — arrange his pardon. He 
will make him feel that the only way to 
realize his ideal of virtue, of happiness, of 
love is to be united with his Father and 
incomparable Friend the Saviour Jesus. 

If on the other hand, he will not listen 
to the voice of God, if he refuse to believe 
His word, must he not fear that he will do 
violence to his conscience and his reason, 
and become the author of his own ruin? 



88 FEOM DOUBT TO FAITH. 

He thus robs all his faculties of the only 
object in which they could find the perfec- 
tion and happiness which their nature 
claims — an object, the bare hope of which, 
even here fills the mind and heart with 
snch strength and sweetness, that we can 
easily conceive into what perpetual ecstacy 
it must plunge the blessed who possess it 
and glorify it by contemplation. 

At a congress of young men held at 
Besan90n, 1898, a writer who has since 
then joined the faith, M. Francis Brune- 
tiere, after proving that faith is an inherent 
need of the soul, recalled that August 
Compte, the leader of the French positiv- 
ists, had recognized the superiority of 
Catholicism over all the systems of religion 
and morality. And the heroic speaker 
added: "If August Compte has not taken 
the last step it is because of a want of 
humility; because he was infected with 
the great heresy of our time, pride. " 

Let us hope that no one who may peruse 
these lines may incur a like reproach and 
through pride or any other motive refuse 
to enrol himself under the banner of Christ. 



L.o 



CONCLUSION. 89 

If as an individual a man reject the faith, 
at least, let him not check the birth and 
growth of faith in those simple souls which 
instinctively tend towards Christ and the 
Church. That would be as criminal as to 
arm the child against the father, as to dry 
up the only spring where the traveler in 
the desert might quench his devouring 
thirst. 

The most inveterate unbeliever, if he 
only take time to reflect, if he enter into 
himself and examine in silence the yearn- 
ings of his own soul, will be obliged to ad- 
mit this. For, he shall then feel the justice 
of this saying of the illustrious author of 
Happy Suffering: "Faith is the satisfaction 
of a need as well as the fulfilment of a 
duty." 



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